Flight Model - No Vertical/Lateral Thrust??

[Tylerj00]

I have a small complaint about the flight system in the game currently.


This not might be the most fair comparison, But I'm a very avid "Elite: Dangerous" player and in elite dangerous you have lateral, vertical, forward, backward, yaw, and pitch movements as ways to maneuver your ship.

Now, in "Star Trucker", You have; Pitch, Yaw, Forward, and Backward thrust. Can you see the issue here?


The "Drive assist" feature works the exact same way as "Flight assist" in elite dangerous, Now onto the issue.

Trying to make a turn using only your forward thrust and turning the front of your "truck" in the direction your trying to go is incredibly inefficient; because all of that momentum that you had going straight is going to carry into the turn, meaning you will drift in the direction you are going until your forward; which in turn makes it very hard to make turns.

Now, lets compare to elite, if you want to make a sharp turn, First you would need to apply reverse thrust (This is assuming your are flying with the flight assist turned off), as you're doing that, you need to start turning the front of your ship in the direction you want to head, next you need to apply "SOME" forward thrust, while applying lateral thrust to push your ship left (or right, depending on which direction you are turning), doing so allows your ship to slow down more efficiently and push you towards where your aiming.

Now we get to Vertical thrust.... and docking, trying to attach to a trailer or dock at a port using only forward and backward thrust, while pitching/yawing your truck to aim where you need to go... I think you'd have better luck shoving a square peg, through a round hole. Having vertical/Lateral Thrust would allow much easier alignment with the docking ports/trailers.


SO, I personally believe that the game needs to add, Vertical Thrust, and Lateral thrust. Why this isn't something that was added in the first place makes no sense, cause again, this leads me to my main point, The way the movement in the game works is incredibly inefficient, which in turn is making the game artificially harder than it needs to be

I'm hoping this post gets read and pushed, I do like the game a lot, i'm not going to sit here and S**T on it, it's a great concept and is extremely fun to play, but the flight movement needs a bit of a touch up to really let this game shine

[King Whiffer]

While I wish there was lateral thrust, vertical thrust, I can see why it was left out. It feels more like truck navigating than a spaceship navigation. Then you have to consider the cargo. You can see there's no thrusters built in. It could be something you buy and is added on automatically. Or there could be a setting that would make your connection to the cargo solid and move with you. Maybe mods can fix this but I don't see that being added officially. I kind of like the challenge of treating it like an actual truck and having to align yourself properly beforehand.

[Ottomic]

You have a docking computer, use it. Everyone does.

[King Whiffer]

Originally posted by Ottomic:

You have a docking computer, use it. Everyone does.

pffff Boooooring lol. I want ALL that manual stuff. The only auto part I use and love is the cruise control. Pretty much mandatory for such games.

[Tylerj00]

Originally posted by King Whiffer IX:

While I wish there was lateral thrust, vertical thrust, I can see why it was left out. It feels more like truck navigating than a spaceship navigation. Then you have to consider the cargo. You can see there's no thrusters built in. It could be something you buy and is added on automatically. Or there could be a setting that would make your connection to the cargo solid and move with you. Maybe mods can fix this but I don't see that being added officially. I kind of like the challenge of treating it like an actual truck and having to align yourself properly beforehand.

The way the thrust is handled without a trailer; is just bad. if they were to add it, it should be a system where you can move any direction without a trailer, but if you have a trailer hooked up, then the flight works how it is currently

[Mobius1]

Translation control is what you are referring to. However it makes no sense to have that in this game. Youre driving a Kenworth in space. The whole point is to have attitude control so its like the 'on earth' counterpart but with a Z axis when youre backing up.

[Chromatic Aberration]

Docking is really easy as is though. You just reverse into the port as if you were reversing a truck.

[Hazmat]

It wasn't added because the current system feels like a truck in space and if you actually look at the truck, the thrusters are not in the correct places to do so.

You'd need another ring of thrusters around the nose of the ship for it to do what you want.

[Jasperado]

I have the exact same complaint. It makes absolutely zero sense to not be able to indepently control that portion of the truck.

For those defending, it is nothing like backing up a truck even for in space. You wouldn't need boosters on the trailers as the trailer follows the truck just like IRL. It would react the exact same way with a z-axis. The lack of a z-axis makes this more tedious then it has any business being.

[Somnambulist]

I think the comparison to E:D kind of misses the reason for the difference - E:D is meant to have a fairly realistic space flight model as part of a large scope space sim, whereas Star Truckers is a much simpler, narrow scope game that's going for more of a Truck Simulator vibe that just happens to be in a kind of cartoony version of space. Yes, it would be easier to manoeuvre with lateral thrusters, but unlike in E:D the demands on your manoeuvring skill are much simpler, it's fairly easy with some practice to cruise up to a docking port and flip around neatly and that's the only situation the game throws at you where lateral thrust would be useful. To an extent the finagling around for docking is the point - this game is much more about the day to day running of a truck, and that includes hitching trailers and such by reversing up to them and having to line up with them.

[CPTVoid]

Originally posted by Somnambulist:

I think the comparison to E:D kind of misses the reason for the difference - E:D is meant to have a fairly realistic space flight model as part of a large scope space sim, whereas Star Truckers is a much simpler, narrow scope game that's going for more of a Truck Simulator vibe that just happens to be in a kind of cartoony version of space. Yes, it would be easier to manoeuvre with lateral thrusters, but unlike in E:D the demands on your manoeuvring skill are much simpler, it's fairly easy with some practice to cruise up to a docking port and flip around neatly and that's the only situation the game throws at you where lateral thrust would be useful. To an extent the finagling around for docking is the point - this game is much more about the day to day running of a truck, and that includes hitching trailers and such by reversing up to them and having to line up with them.

(STAR)Trucker not ATS or ETS .....i play ED and Star citizen ..... but ask your self what space game/sim does not have up/down thrust. i dont wanna go sliding around everywhere . WHY would i want to back up in space.

[Ottomic]

Originally posted by CPTVoid:

(STAR)Trucker not ATS or ETS .....i play ED and Star citizen ..... but ask your self what space game/sim does not have up/down thrust. i dont wanna go sliding around everywhere . WHY would i want to back up in space.

None, but that's the beauty of star trucker. It does things that other games don't. This game is not elite or SC and doesn't need to be.

It's fine if you don't like it, I'm sure there's plenty of games you can be playing instead of this if you want a more traditional space control scheme.

[AlexS]

How do you want to achieve this thrust with and without a trailer?

[Tylerj00]

Originally posted by AlexS:

How do you want to achieve this thrust with and without a trailer?

Easiest thing would make it so when your unhooked from a trailer you have vertical and Lateral thrust, but when you hook up a trailer, your "truck" goes into sort of a "hauling mode", which then makes it behave how it does currently (Until you unhook the trailer)

[AlexS]

Originally posted by Tylerj00:

Easiest thing would make it so when your unhooked from a trailer you have vertical and Lateral thrust, but when you hook up a trailer, your "truck" goes into sort of a "hauling mode", which then makes it behave how it does currently (Until you unhook the trailer)

How it suppose acheive this vertical and lateral thrust?

[Tylerj00]

Originally posted by AlexS:

Originally posted by Tylerj00:

Easiest thing would make it so when your unhooked from a trailer you have vertical and Lateral thrust, but when you hook up a trailer, your "truck" goes into sort of a "hauling mode", which then makes it behave how it does currently (Until you unhook the trailer)

How it suppose acheive this vertical and lateral thrust?

The truck? Just add thrusters to it. I feel like you might not have read what I said Originally